


#Insomnisquad

by Jordan_Marine



Category: The Talon Saga - Julie Kagawa
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene, Wes is not happy about this turn of events, and does NOT care about the emotional wellbeing of others, happy fic (kinda), late-night conversations, not-angsty fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22069933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jordan_Marine/pseuds/Jordan_Marine
Summary: Everyone is traumatized and no one can sleep. This leads to a somewhat exasperated conversation that one should not be having at 4:00 in the morning.(Missing scene during Legion.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	#Insomnisquad

**Author's Note:**

> Is it a bad thing to say that this has been a WIP for over a year? Anyway, I finally finished it because I'm working on two multi-chaptered Talon fics at the moment and I wanted to go back to a simple, canon-compliant oneshot. So have four-thousand words.

The hours between 3:00 and 5:00 were hours in which nothing was quite real. The windows were black, the only sound present was the hum of electricity in the walls, and the solitude was absolute. No one in their right mind would be awake, let alone out of bed, let alone trying to be productive. 

So  _ why  _ was he still up?

Wes groaned and rubbed his eyes, seeing spots across his vision. He had actually promised Riley that he’d try to get some sleep; they probably couldn’t move on the shady-as-hell crash site tomorrow, but he needed sleep before then if he expected to be of any use. He knew that he was functioning at half-capacity. But there was nothing to be done about being up so late. If he tried to go to sleep, he’d just end up staring at the ceiling for eight hours, and not only would that be boring, but it would cause needless frustration on his end. So there he was, sitting on the table, on his eleventh can of RedBull since he last woke up, trying to figure out what the hell the Order of St. George was doing.

Jade said that Talon was more concerning than the Order. Riley said that the only thing that mattered was keeping the Underground safe. St. George was concerned about how quiet the Order was. Ember was still worried about her brother. Wes was tired. And probably dehydrated. Maybe if he stopped drinking straight caffeine, he’d be able to sleep easier.

Maybe if he stopped being anxious and having a chemical imbalance in his brain, he wouldn’t have chronic insomnia, and he wouldn’t need the caffeine.

“You’re still awake?”

Wes blinked several times and looked up from his laptop. Ember stood in the doorway, eyes still glazed over from exhaustion of just waking up, her shirt wrinkled. She looked… a bit sick, honestly.

“Why the hell are you up?” he asked.

“Says you.”

Wes glared and put his laptop on the table beside him, but it took a good second for him to generate a response. “Yeah, says me. It’s  _ late _ . You need your sleep. I don’t want to put up with you or anyone else when you’re supposed to be sleeping. This is the only time of day that I have to myself.”

“It’s…” Ember looked out the window, brow furrowed. “…not day.”

“Piss off,” Wes muttered. When he looked at Ember again, she was sitting on the couch, staring at nothing. He had seen that look many times, usually from Riley, occasionally from one of their hatchlings, a few times in his reflection. Either she was feverish, or she was thinking about something that wasn’t supposed to be thought about at 3:54 AM.

It wasn’t his problem. It  _ really  _ wasn’t his problem. He’d tell Riley when he woke up and keep an eye out for any more signs of physical sickness, and he’d leave it at that.

“Ember,” he said, a bit sharper than usual. Ember jolted and looked at him. “You okay?”

Did he  _ really _ just say that?

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine. Just... can’t sleep.”

“Are…” Wes paused, looking down at his empty Redbull. He couldn’t deal with tired hatchlings. He hadn’t slept in forty-three hours. What if Ember needed to  _ talk  _ to someone? “How are your nightmares?”

“What?”

“Ember. I’m up all hours of the night. I know everyone’s sleep habits. Either you’re having nightmares, or you’re feverish. Or both.”  _ Please be feverish. I can fix a fever.  _ “Considering that I can also hear fairly well, you’re either having fever-nightmares or normal nightmares. Either way…”

“I’m… they’re fine. They’re just a lot, sometimes, and sitting alone in a dark room is…” she paused. She seemed to realize what she was doing and, more importantly, who she was talking to. “But they’re  _ fine.  _ I’m fine.”

“Obviously not,” Wes snorted. “You’re talking to  _ me. _ ”

Ember laid down on the couch, obscuring himself from his view. “How about we talk about the fact that  _ you’re  _ up often enough to know everyone’s sleep habits.”

“Point taken.”

Wes turned back to his laptop. St. George was  _ not  _ going to crop up in the next few hours if he went to lay down. On the other hand, he was not going to go to sleep if he went to lay down either, especially after he had recently finished pumping his blood with caffeine. So back to work it was. He got off the table and turned the lights on low in vague hopes that Ember would be able to doze off for a few more hours.

“Why the hell…”

Wes’ head jolted up. Riley was in the hallway in a shirt three sizes too big for him, and he looked  _ incredibly  _ disappointed by Wes’ life decisions.

“Hi.”

“Why aren’t you  _ asleep? _ ” Riley hissed, in front of Wes in an instant, grabbing his shoulders.

“Why aren’t  _ you _ asleep?” As if Wes didn’t know the answer. Riley had a schedule: go to sleep, wake up for fifteen minutes and either stare at the wall in his room or wander around like a lethargic zombie, go back to sleep. Repeat three to five times throughout the night.

“I’m just up to get some  _ water!  _ You’re the one that looks half dead from exhaustion! Did you even  _ try _ tonight?”

“Keep your voice down, you bloody nursemaid, Ember’s on the couch, and I’m  _ trying  _ to make sure she can go back to sleep,” Wes whispered. “And if you wake St. George I  _ swear— _ ”

“And  _ I’m  _ the nursemaid in this situation?” Riley raised an eyebrow. “Next, you’ll be offering her tea.”

“You can... shut up. I don’t make tea.” 

“You made me that knockout tea, once.”

“The secret ingredient is my ever-constant annoyance.” Wes turned away from Riley and made his way back to the table, checking his laptop again. St. George radio was silent. The underground looked pretty dark— the hatchlings weren’t even talking among each other over their network as often. No dead safehouses, though. That was good enough for him.

“I’d like tea…” Ember mumbled from the couch, and Wes could practically  _ hear  _ her grinning. 

“Go to sleep,” Wes said.

“Will you read me a story?”

“Yeah, Wes, read us a story!”

“Don’t  _ you _ start. Ember and St. George have been a  _ terrible  _ influence on you. Just... drink your water, go back to bed, and stop pissing me off. Ember, just… go to sleep. I can wake you up if you’re having a nightmare, but you need more sleep than you’re getting. You’re barely sleeping more than  _ I  _ am. That’s a generally horrible sign.”

“Aw…” Riley smirked and ruffled Wes’ hair, pulling at it slightly. “You  _ do  _ care. I knew you had it in you.”

“Oh, piss off.”

“You two are adorable,” Ember said.

Wes groaned and batted Riley’s hand away from his hair. At this rate, he might as well go to bed just to escape his current company. He could at least hole himself in his room and refuse to come out until they were back to important discussions instead of 4:00 AM mockery.

But Riley knew how Wes’ brain worked. He was probably doing this with those exact intentions.

Riley filled up two glasses of water and handed one to Wes before sitting on the table as well, closing his eyes. Wes drank half of the glass in one gulp. Energy drinks did _not_ help him with thirst, but he had a tendency to forget that water existed. It was a wonder that he was still alive.  
“So… what do I need to bribe you with in order for you to lay down until Garret and Jade wake up?” Riley murmured, low enough that Ember hopefully wouldn’t be too disturbed by it.

“You can’t,” Wes shook his head.

“I’m not going to sleep until you go to sleep.”

“Then be exhausted like the rest of us.” Wes finished his water and got off the table, ignoring how his vision went black around the edges for a solid three seconds. “I’m going to… get Ember a blanket or something.”

“Nursemaid.”

Wes didn’t try to dignify that with a response. He walked into the hallway and to the closet, where the resort had a few extra blankets. He didn’t know why he was even doing this. Ember didn’t like him. She didn’t want his help. He didn’t particularly enjoy dealing with exhausted dragonelles that didn’t like him or want his help. He wasn’t a naturally helpful person in the first place.

But he knew how much insomnia sucked, so there he was, getting a blanket for Ember because she didn’t want to be alone in a dark room, and he didn’t mind if she slept on the couch. Couldn’t have her sleeping habits mirroring his, or he’d never be able to escape from people.

_ Bloody hell, I  _ **_am_ ** _ acting like a nursemaid.  _ Wes wrinkled his nose and grabbed a blanket from the closet. He was  _ not.  _ He was doing what he had to, so Ember could properly function, because if he  _ didn’t,  _ he’d have to deal with something worse down the road. Like a failing immune system similar to his.

A door opened in front of Wes, making him stop in his tracks as Garret lurched in front of him. His eyes were still glassy, movements devoid of the grace of a soldier that he normally possessed, and there were tear tracks down his face.

“Oh. Hi, Wes.” He tried to smile but let it drop as he wiped his eyes. “You’re still up?”

“Everyone is. Except for Jade. Don’t look so bloody panicked, you didn’t sleep in… unfortunately,” Wes said and walked back into the mainroom with Garret trailing behind him. He unfolded the blanket and draped it over Ember.

“I don’t need a—”

“Go to  _ sleep,  _ Ember,” Wes interrupted. Ember looked at him through dull green eyes and smiled lazily.

“You  _ do  _ care.”

“No I don’t.”

“Oh, yes you do,” Riley snorted. He was at the coffee pot, probably trying to make coffee the way he liked it before Garret could try. Wes walked over to the refrigerator and retrieved another bottle of redbull. “No. Put it back.”

“Riley—”

“Wes, put it back before I dump all of your red bull down the sink. Don’t test me.”

“Riley—”

“There’s a _reason_ that I say no caffeine past the twenty-four hour limit!”  
“That’s a rule?” Ember sat up from the couch and squinted at them. Wes closed the fridge, opened the red bull, and drank as much as he could before ducking away from Riley and retreating back to the table.

“Yeah, it’s a rule. Because  _ someone  _ thinks that it’s perfectly acceptable to stay up for three days straight and survive on nothing but caffeine drinks until he faints and gives himself a concussion. Get— we  _ have chairs,  _ get off the table.”

“Go back to being concerned about the children in our group.”

“You’re making that very difficult, Wesley.”

“Be quiet, you’re disturbing Ember.”

“I’m not getting any more sleep, like it or not,” Ember said, very matter-of-fact.

“Then you’re disturbing Garret,” Wes said as he looked around the room. Garret was curled up on the cushioned chair, muscles tense despite how tired he had to be, eyes taking in everything. Wes couldn’t help but wince. It wasn’t Garret’s first night terror around any of them, but they had to be nasty for him to take so long to calm himself down.

Wes checked the time on his laptop— 4:36. There was very little chance of any of them getting to sleep at this rate.

“How’s the bullet wound, St. George?” Wes asked and held his red bull away from Riley’s grasp. “Does it feel warm or irritated?”

“No, it’s fine,” Garret shook his head and pressed a hand to his chest.

“Does it hurt to breathe at all?”

“No.”

“Bloody hell, he’s a miracle,” Wes shook his head and pushed Riley away. “Piss off. I’m finishing my redbull whether you like it or not.”

“Fine. Asshole.” he retreated back to the coffee pot to check it. “But tomorrow night, you’re laying down for at least eight hours, and I  _ will  _ lay on top of you to hold you to that. You’re no use to us hallucinating or feverish.”

“I’m touched.”

“So what did you dream about?” Ember asked Garret softly. She sat up further and drew the blanket around her shoulders like an oversized cape. 

Garret could only shrug in response. He wiped his eyes as inconspicuously as possible, which wasn’t very inconspicuous. He was  _ still  _ crying. “I don’t remember much. Never do. I think it’s better that way.” His lips twitched, but he stayed tense. “Probably something about scorpions.”

“Do you want a blanket?” Wes asked. His voice sounded flat even to his own ears.

“No.”

“Do  _ you  _ want a blanket?” Riley asked. “Or pillows? Or… is there  _ anything? _ ”

“You ask this at least once a month, mate. I’ve told you. There isn’t, or I would’ve found it by now, and I’d use it. Constantly. Do you think I actually enjoy staying up this bloody fucking late?”

“I could give you a concussion,” Ember grinned at him, and her eyes brightened a bit.

“Or you could  _ not  _ do that.”

Riley groaned to himself and poured a cup of coffee. He almost missed the cup. Then he almost  _ dropped  _ the cup. Garret gave a quiet breath of laughter from his chair, lips twitching as he watched Riley, who glared at him. It would have looked much more impressive if it weren’t for the state of his hair, the shirt he was wearing that was several sizes too big for him, and the fact that he was shivering a bit. He turned away, dumped a fair three tablespoons of sugar into his coffee, and drank half of the cup.

“ _ Oh, I’m just going to get some water and go back to sleep,  _ he said,” Wes muttered. “He bloody well lied.”

“Are you afraid of scorpions?” Ember continued her conversation with Garret, her voice lightly teasing.

“Yeah... It’s not my fault, though, I got stung once when I was six. I used to try and catch crickets. It wasn’t a cricket. I had to stay in the infirmary overnight, that was my first infirmary visit, my hand swelled up to the size of a balloon. I’ve been terrified of them ever since,” Garret replied. He shuddered but relaxed a bit and wiped his eyes again, less discreetly. “Considering that I lived in the desert, it was… a bit of a problem. Kinda embarrassing. I can face down death but I can’t talk to a normal person or deal with a singular scorpion.”

“So what happened when you found them?”

“I got Tristan to kill them.”

“That’s a bit pathetic,” Riley smirked and set his coffee down. Then, in one fluid movement, he moved over to the table, took Wes’ redbull out of his hands, and drank the rest of it. 

“Riley!”

“Sush, Jade’s still asleep, Jade’s still—  _ ow! _ ” Riley put a hand to his ribs, where Wes had just kicked him. “Jeezus Christ. For someone who gets jumpy whenever he’s in danger,  _ and  _ the resident medic, you don’t try  _ nearly  _ hard enough to take care of yourself. You’re not enough of an idiot not to know that you need some as simple as  _ sleep. _ ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wes said. “I have a system, and it’s working  _ great. _ ”

“You have gotten influenza every year for the past eleven years. Sometimes twice in the same year. It shouldn’t be possible, and yet  _ every  _ year—”

“The time that I get the flu is when I can habitually sleep for eight hours at a time.”

“And be feverish. And miserable. And your eight hours at a time tend to be in the middle of the afternoon.”

“But I  _ get them. _ ”

“Do you ever listen to their conversations and wonder how the hell they’ve lived as long as they have? And how they somehow claim to be friends?” Garret asked quietly. Ember snickered and nodded.

“All I have to do is  _ look  _ at you and wonder you’ve lived as long as you have,” Riley snorted.

“I also wonder about your last point,” Wes said. Riley reached over and ruffled his hair again. Wes growled and swatted his hand away. “And  _ you’re _ not helping.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Riley yawned and sat on the table next to him. With some closer inspection, he looked like fresh hell— his skin tone was more grey than usual, his eyes were a dull golden brown, and there were scratch marks around his hairline from raking his hair back and pulling at it. Not that Wes was going to bring it up. He knew better than to bring up stress or health concerns when he undoubtedly looked worse.

Wes couldn’t help but wonder what the resident soldier of St. George would think if he knew that Riley had lost days of sleep while he was unconscious, too stressed to do anything else other than doze for a few minutes at a time.

Ember and Garret resumed their quiet conversation, and Garret managed to uncurl from his tense ball, even if he still hugged one of his knees to his chest. Wes opened his computer back up, turning to the news sources to look for any Talon activities concerning the explosion sight they would be checking out. There wasn’t much about it on the public news sites, other than the trailer town it had taken place in, and the suspected deaths. There were a few conspiracy theories already up, but Wes didn’t have any interest in reading through them. No doubt that they’d be lackluster compared to what actually happened.

Whatever the hell _that_ was. There was no logical explanation as to why they would wipe out an entire village of civilians, and to do it so _sloppily,_ too. Wes knew that they had their ways to make people drop off the face of the earth. They had done that to him. Hell, they could make small towns disappear without too much trouble. He had helped with that once before. That part didn’t disturb him. But the sloppiness scared him more than he wanted to admit. Talon wasn’t _sloppy._

Riley leaned against him and rested his head on his shoulder, looking at the computer screen.

“Underground is still dark?”

“Yeah. The hatchlings are getting scared. Not even talking to each other on the servers. I know that we needed to go-to-ground protocol, but I hate using it. What if Griffin gave Talon all of our coordinates? They’d be sitting around on their ass, waiting for a viper to off them.”

“Wes…” Riley groaned and rubbed at his eyes. “The less you sleep, the more paranoid you get.”

“This isn’t paranoia, it’s—”

“Yeah, yeah, I  _ know,  _ trust me _.  _ But we can’t do anything about it. It’s no use worrying when there’s nothing better that we can…” Riley’s voice faded out, and he gave a heavy sigh. “Just… shush.”

“ _ Wow,”  _ Wes rolled his eyes. “Eloquent.” Riley flicked the back of his head in response. Wes turned back to his laptop, letting Ember and Garret’s conversation buzz in the back of his head. One would think that, after over forty hours, he would have run out of things to do, but he had quite the list to keep him occupied. The fake Homeland Security identities, for one. Monitoring St. George. Monitoring the underground. Making sure the  _ real  _ Homeland Security was nowhere to be found.

A blanket hit him in the face.

“Bloody—  _ Ember! _ ” Wes hissed, eyes going to her in an instant. She gave an unapologetic grin. Riley snickered beside him. “What was that for?”

“An intervention,” she said. Wes growled and turned back to his laptop, pointedly ignoring the blanket crumpled on the floor. Chronic insomnia wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but it  _ did _ have its advantages. Or so he told himself. No doubt that he got more things done in forty-eight hours than the average person. And it wasn’t as if  _ anyone  _ in the room could say that their sleep schedules were perfect— Garret would scream and stumble around in his sleep, Ember purposefully avoided anything deeper than dozing off, and Riley hadn’t slept through the entire night in years. They were all up at 5:00 in the morning. No one could preach to him.

He guessed he couldn’t preach to anyone else, either.

Eventually, Riley left his side, muttering something about making breakfast. Not before wrapping the blanket over Wes’ shoulders and ruffling his hair, which he barely noticed.  _ That  _ was probably a sign that he wasn’t operating as he was supposed to. He half-listened to Ember and Garret’s conversation as he worked, and eventually registered the smell of meat coming from the kitchen area. Riley was a talented cook, even if he refused to admit it. His desire for high-quality food had probably saved Ember from scurvy several times by now.

By 6:00, Wes could be certain that homeland security wasn’t going to rain on their parade. Not that anyone in the room would appreciate it, since Riley barely knew what Homeland Security was.

“So we just have to look vaguely professional, right?” Garret asked. Wes looked up to see him staring right at him. “Riley’s sure he can take care of getting us in. Ember and I don’t have to say anything?”

“Have you never seen Riley’s BS in action?” Wes asked. Thinking back, he didn’t think Garret  _ had.  _ “Trust me. He knows how to get into areas he’s not supposed to be.”

“I once convinced a police precinct that I was a transfer and stole a hot case file in under an hour,” Riley said from the counter.

“I did most of the legwork on that particular heist, so stop bragging.” Thirty-six hours straight of hacking into the Police system to make him legitimate enough to be let into the station, but it was well worth it— they ended up using modified versions of that fake identity a grand total of five times before Talon caught on. Wes nearly cried when they had to burn it.

“Then why didn’t you want to play the role?”

Wes glared at him. “I don’t know, Riley, maybe because police stations make me jumpy.”

Riley winced. 

“Also, you look the part,” Wes added. “But, in response to Garret, you won’t have to talk. You’re marked in the system as in-training. Riley and Jade are in charge. If they ask to talk to a superior, you give them my number, and I’ll give them the technical mumbo-jumbo that I habitually bore people with, even though it’s usually  _ important _ .”

Riley grinned, which nearly made it look like he wasn’t exhausted. Wes looked over his work and took a deep breath. He shut his laptop and set it to the side. He was done for the night. He had done everything he could, and he trusted Riley to carry the con the rest of the way. Now he could eat some decent food and maybe take a shower before Jade woke up.

“Breakfast is ready,” Riley called. 

Garret stood and beelined for the food. Wes noted that there was some grumbling on Ember’s part, and she stumbled slightly when she stood, so she  _ had  _ been dozing near the end. Riley retreated from the counter, his plate in hand. For all the love he held for Ember, he was holding his plate pretty tightly and making solid eye contact with her as he sat down. There were two forks on it.

“I doubt that you’d make it past those two monsters,” Riley said as explanation. “Hey, Firebrand, St. George. Leave some for Jade, at least.”

Wes took a fork. The sausages were amazing. The eggs were seasoned, which was surprising, because he hadn’t thought this place came pre-packed with anything. He could see the merits of a non-caffeine based diet. Garret silently joined them at the table. Ember stayed by the counter, closest to the food. 

Wes had already bought suits for them. They weren’t tailored, but no one from this area would know that. He doubted that the local police would try to background check them, and if they  _ did,  _ Wes could slow down their search until they were out of town. He was good at that. There was nothing more he could do to prepare.

They were ready. And after this was all done, he  _ would  _ sleep.

“ _ What. _ ”

Wes jerked his head up. Jade was standing in the hallway, looking over all of them. It was 6:10. They were all awake, and breakfast was already prepared. He had no doubt that the circles under his eyes were just as dark as Riley’s. Jade appeared…  _ incredibly  _ disappointed. Regretful, maybe. Like she couldn’t believe she had willingly allied with them.

“Hi, Jade,” Garret said, completely unashamed, and turned back to his food.

“How long has everyone been awake?”

“Four-ish,” Garret said.

“Yeah,” Riley went back to his food.

“Three-thirty.” At least Ember had the good sense to look  _ slightly  _ ashamed.

“Two days ago.” Wes did not. “It’s fine. This is how we function.”

Jade did not look reassured.


End file.
